Same here. Discussion of exorcism and demons would have been so out of place in my midwestern Catholic high school. And it still would be today, 25 years later, I think. When we learned about exorcisms, it was generally in the context of “Listen, this was a weird thing that the church did way back in the day before…

I would argue that many priests are emotionally and psychosexually immature to the point that they are, mentally, preteens in this area. Many begin their seminary studies young, before experiencing dating and relationships and sexual experimentation. Their religiosity makes it even more unlikely that they participated…

I think there are some key differences between the two circumstances, though. In particular, there are the issues of length of the marriage and when the wealth was accumulated. Baumgartner was married to Costner for almost 20 years, I think, and Costner is in a very different financial position than he was when they…

Oh totally. 

I like how all/most of these have an interesting angle on the state they’re about. And then there’s poor Iowa:

I (atheist/recovering Catholic) am trying to imagine what my parents would have done if we had come home from our Catholic high school talking about a priest lecturing on “demonology” and performing exorcisms. I know this for sure—they would have told us to not sit through another one of this talks. Get up and leave…

I haven’t eaten at either consistently for probably 4 years (I moved and the local options are much better), but I remember that the Chipotle in my old town was much better for exactly the reason you specified. All of the stuff at Chiptle seemed to work together. The Qdoba sometimes had add-ins and flavors that…

This bullshit is too depressing for me to engage with today. So I’m choosing this instead:

“Successful movies lend themselves to more movies,” said Kreiz of the company’s ambition to “create film franchises.”

10/10 would watch that Coen brothers movie. Or Skarsgard in a Yorgos Lanthimos movie. I thought Mute had so much potential and was executed so, so badly. Skarsgard was good in it, and the exercise of leading a movie without ever speaking was super interesting to watch, but man did that entire movie careen off the…

To my mind, the most honest depiction of the modern era of warfare. So well done. It’s criminal that it didn’t win the Emmy that year. Criminal. 

“And solve these riddles three...”

This right here is the reason why I’ll never have a gun in my house or live with/be in a relationship with a gun owner. The risk of someone losing control of themselves and making a bad snap decision is too much. I’ve got one particular relative who owns guns and we respectfully disagree on this issue. He thinks that…

“And there should only be one ballot box for Democratic counties, and it should be as far away from any urban centers as possible, and not on any transportation routes. And it should be open for very generous early voting hours, say, from 6:53 a.m. to 6:57 a.m. on the Friday before the election.”

And the people foretelling the death of the minivan also discount the way that the sliding doors change your life if you’ve got kids. Lots of people don’t have wide enough garages for kids to open two doors of an SUV and climb in. The sliding doors on a van are *chef’s kiss.* No more worry about your kid dinging the…

Agreed. That seems to be the pattern he’s settled into. He’s also surprisingly good as a comedic actor, even though I assume he doesn’t get offered much comedy. He stole every scene in Long Shot, and while The Hummingbird Project wasn’t great, his performance as Anton (particularly the dancing and the scene where he…

I think that’s a really interesting question, because the Tarzan movie was...bad. I’m sure he took a hit to his bankability. Godzilla vs. Kong didn’t make much of a splash, either, but I’m not sure that was his fault—especially considering it got sort of swallowed up in the pandemic movie apocalypse. But that whole…

To me hoisin would have fit into this article more naturally than lobster sauce. I think people do tend to think that oyster sauce and be swapped with hoisin and vice versa. And maybe sometimes it can and it won’t ruin a dish, but people should know their differences so that they can accommodate for them in the…

Another way to think about your daily vacation schedule, if you aren’t all about sleeping in, is to figure in a nap. This seems to be what works well for me and my girlfriends when traveling. (Full disclosure: I’m kid-free, so YMMV if you’re vacationing with young kids). But for me and my frequent travel companions,…

Oh the Farmer’s Almanac’s weather predictions are complete hookum. They predicted a cataclysmic winter for my region last year, and we had one of the mildest winters in decades instead. According to Popular Mechanics, studies of the accuracy of the Farmer’s Almanac say it ends up being right around 50%, or what you…